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Gabriel Arana

Gabriel Arana is a senior editor at The American Prospect. His articles on gay rights, immigration, and media have appeared in publications including The New Republic, The Nation, Salon, The Advocate, and The Daily Beast.

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Recent Articles

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite W ell, that's that. After six years of litigation, today the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in the states, and dismissed the Prop. 8 case on procedural grounds. Because California's governor and attorney general declined to defend the law's constitutionality in court, supporters of the measure took up the task; the justices found they did not have the proper "standing" to do so. Practically, the decision finding the measure unconstitutional stands, but it applies only to California. Some gay-rights supporters are breathing a sigh of relief. When the star legal team of Ted Olsen and David Boies first filed their challenge to Prop. 8 in 2008, many in the LGBT legal rights movement feared it was too soon to ask the "big question"—do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry?—and that the Court would issue a broad ruling...

AP Photo/Alan Marler Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International A year ago, I wrote in the pages of the Prospect about the three and a half years I spent in "ex-gay" therapy and about prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer's repudiation of his infamous 2001 study claiming that changing one's sexual orientation was possible. One of the most frequent questions I was asked after the article was published was whether I resented my parents for sending me to therapy. If they can forgive me for putting their parenting on display for the world to judge, I answered, I can forgive them for—among their many good decisions—making a big mistake. Parents deserve some slack for taking on the task of raising a human being, along with its central heartbreak: Despite love and the best intentions, you inevitably end up screwing up your kids in some way. I thought of this yesterday, when Exodus International, the country's largest ex-gay organization, announced it would be shutting its doors. The...

Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection W hen the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the Gang of Eight's immigration bill Tuesday—which showed the legislation would cut the deficit by $197 billion over the next 10 years and by $700 billion over the next 20 thanks to tax revenue from increased economic activity—its opponents pounced. "If there’s one thing Washington knows how to do, it’s to come up with bogus cost estimates," Texas Senator Ted Cruz told right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who like Cruz sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been a staunch opponent of the bill, assailed the agency for failing to account for spending past the first ten years (the agency typically does not conduct detailed cost projections past ten years given the difficulty of doing so accurately). But despite the ballyhoo over how much the bill will cost U.S. taxpayers, there is one area where money seems to be no...

*/ AP Photo/Charles Dharapak Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has proposed an amendment to the current Gang of Eight immigration bill requiring English proficiency in order to obtain a green card. M arco Rubio wants immigrants to learn English—and fast. Last week, the Florida Senator introduced an amendment to the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, currently being debated on the floor of the Senate, that would require undocumented immigrants to demonstrate English proficiency before becoming legal permanent residents. Current law already requires English proficiency for naturalization , but the proposal would impose the requirement just to obtain a green card. "I just truly believe that as part of any successful immigration reform, you have to have assimilation," Rubio said in explaining the purpose of the amendment. "And one of the quickest ways for people to assimilate into our culture and into our society is to speak the unifying language of our country, which is...

AP Photo/Jason DeCrow Members of the LGBT community and their supporters gather to protest a string of anti-gay attacks, including the fatal shooting of 32-year old Mark Carson on Saturday. O n the oak-lined streets of the West Village in New York City—the home of Stonewall, the birthplace of the American gay-rights movement—or among the gym bunnies in Chelsea, gay people are allowed to feel safe. In case the same-sex couples with pastel cardigans walking their dogs aren’t enough, the chipped rainbow decals on the storefronts are there to remind you: You own this space. Going home to Tennessee or Michigan might be another thing, but here you can forget that somewhere out there, there are people who don’t know you and want to hurt you. The feeling of sanctuary that hovers over the city makes the spate of crimes against gay people in New York over the past week that much more unsettling. First, on Sunday there was the murder of 33-year-old Mark Carson on Sixth Avenue. Shortly after...